Advocating for an end to LGBT deaths due to bigotry, and remembering those we have lost

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Why no matter how hard they try, DADT cannot be brought back

Its been said by many of the Republican candidates for president that one of their first acts will be to re-enact DADT, possibly by executive order. For some its playing to the homophobic republican base, for others its their heartfelt bigotry.

Repeal for good?

However one thing we have to ask, is whether it is practical once repeal has been enacted for DADT to be re-enacted. By re-enacting the law, the bill’s signer, would be kicking out of the military, every single soldier, pilot, and sailor who’s been honest about who they are, so lets look at some numbers to think about what that would mean.

There are currently 1,445,000 active duty service members and 833,616 reserve troops which gives a grand total of 2,278,616 persons who would be affected by this policy. So assuming the conservative figure of 3.5% of the population identifies as LGB, that would say that there approximately at least 80,000 LGB service members. Lets assume that half that group comes out in the next few days (another conservative figure), so potentially by the stroke of a pen, the Commander in Chief will dismiss 40,000 highly qualified and trained troops at a time when the US military cannot afford to loose anyone.

Promising repeal of the repeal?

In the time of DADT, there has been horrific outcry by everyone from Queer Rights Activists, to Devout Defence Hawks have protested the senseless loss of 13,650 service members. Now repealing the repeal, would cause the loss of 3 times that number in 1 day.

While many of these candidates lack any common sense, when faced with those numbers, alone they would have to realise the catastrophic damage to the US military by the instantaneous loss of 40,000 troops.

They can promise all they want to bring back DADT, but the last day to prevent the repeal of DADT, was yesterday, before the “Great Revelation”.